#37 - Tim Urban - Beating Procrastination, Parenthood, and Politics

In this episode of the Win Win Podcast, Liv and Igor sit down with Wait But Why creator Tim Urban to explore everything from his unexpected pet tortoise, Winston, to the mind-bending implications of superintelligent AI.We hear about his latest foray into book writing, and how he’s structured his workflow to overcome his damn procrastination monkey. The crew also discuss such classics as free will, parenthood and the current state of (un) freedom of speech in the UK. Fun stuff.

Chapters:0:00 - Intro

1:27 - Book Writing

11:33 - Thoughts On Free Will

15:54 - Liv & Tim's Wager

34:26 - Systems for Work, Life and Progress

37:52 - Parenthood

43:02 - Picking the Right Life Partner

48:47 - That Bloody Heat Map

1:00:38 - Political Changes and Currents

1:15:07 - UK Political Degradation

1:22:40 - Surveillance and Government Overreach

1:33:17 - Rapid Fire Predictions

Links:

♾️ Wait But Why Blog: https://waitbutwhy.com ♾️ What's our problem? Book: https://waitbutwhy.com/whatsourproblem ♾️ Heat Map study : https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12227-0

♾️ Apple pulls data protection feature in UK : https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-removing-end-to-end-cloud-encryption-feature-uk-bloomberg-news-reports-2025-02-21/

Credits

♾️ Hosted by Liv Boeree

♾️ Edited and Mixed by Jackson Page

♾️ Produced by Luca de Vico

The Win-Win Podcast:

Poker champion Liv Boeree takes to the interview chair to tease apart the complexities of one of the most fundamental parts of human nature: competition. Liv is joined by top philosophers, gamers, artists, technologists, CEOs, scientists, athletes and more to understand how competition manifests in their world, and how to change seemingly win-lose games into Win-Wins.